I’m at a loss to explain underlying causes of this phenomenon, but for the past few weeks, my body has been coaxing me awake at the oddest hours; typically between three and four-thirty in the morning. Which, if I were living in another time zone, would overlap quite nicely with the bells that signal the end of my niblings’ school day.
Instead, I lie wide awake in bed, wondering wh
y my body’s alarm clock persists in shaking me up from my reverie (ugh, dreamus interruptus!), with no regard for time difference. Rather than confront and question this unsolicited nocturnal recess, I decided to let myself seep into that strange slice of time – bracketed by hours of real sleep – and just be.
Once I let go and just tapped into the reality of those hours, looking out into the sky, listening in to the sounds of a sleeping city, I began to notice that I was privy to the sweetest spot of the night.
And so it was, yet again, last night, under the Balinese full moon (purnama), that not a sound was heard – other than the swaying of trees and the chirping of critters inhabt. Not a single dog howled. Not a rooster crowed. No motorbikes, trucks or cars rumbled by. The ice cream motorbike, with its incessant and familiar tune, was stored for the night. Gamelan instruments, generators, mechanic’s machines and drills were silenced.
Right there, in the middle of it all, I found the beauty that often is forgotten or eludes us in the midst of daily living in Ubud. It was the sheer beauty of silence, of nature in its truest form. There was nothing to hear and yet, so much startling aliveness shifting, breathing effortlessly through the night air. As though a veil of cool calm had descended upon us by angels. Sweet music of the night.
I’m convinced that my body and spirit, craving patches of silence, knowing at a deeper level that what I seek exists on a alternate plane, at a different time of day, has conferred upon me a gift through these pre-dawn awakenings.
And when the time comes (if at all) when my body is aligned once again with distant longitudes, I hope to embrace the experience, and find the magic and mystery that lies within.
Healing Pilgrim 